Postmodernism: Our Narrative
"A course narrative designed to chronicle the class's''' understanding of postmodernism (P'OM'O). The goal of this wiki is to '''collaboratively, anonymously create a space that includes and synthesizes multiple views, analyses, and voices in the class's comprehension of postmodern literature and art. Ideally, by the end of the assignment this space will be an invaluable 'resource for its participants." Postmodernism is notoriously ambiguous. The purpose of this class is to come to a comprehensive understanding of the postmodern movement through reading literature that represents and expresses the major tenets of postmodernism. ''Decentered Narratives Postmodern fiction tends to decenter the traditional flow of narratives. In Thomas Pyncheon’s The Crying of Lot 49, the line between what is real and what is fantasy is blurred as the main character, Oedipa, goes on a seemingly random journey to discover a truth that perhaps does not even exist. This novel particularly exemplifies the postmodern idea that life and our experiences contain no deep significance or meaning. Heller's war novel, ''Catch-22, ''show a narrative that changes focus from one character to the next. Each chapter is titled the name of a particular character and functions as a mini-narrative. Rather than the book following the regular sequential order, the whole picture only comes together at the end of the book, when the reader is able to re-configure the mini-narratives into a larger whole. Jennifer Egan's ''A Visit from the Goon Squad ''follows a similar structure that sets up each chapter as its own mini-narrative. Like Heller, each chapter follows a different character, yet she goes a step beyond Heller in that she alters between narrative voices as well. In postmodern literature, more work is required of the reader to engage in the story and put the decentered pieces together like a literary puzzle. The end result can be for some a more fulfilled reading experience because of the active participation required of the reader. '''Historical perspective: Postmodernism emerged after the disastrous of World War I. At the time, one sensed that life had changed fundamentally: traditional boundaries and rules no longer held. All had to be rewritten. Thus, Wiliam Butler Yeats wrote in "The Second Coming,"Turning and turning in the widening gyre/The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned;". Out of the anarchy a new creative expression emerged in art, architecture, and literature. Disrupted Captial Destabilized Subjects //BEGIN TRANSMISSION ..................................................DECONSTRUCTING NARRATIVES {C ..........................................DECENTERING BINARY OPPOSITIONS ...........................................................ILLUMINATING THE HIDDEN .............................................................FRAGMENTING THE SELF ......................................................EXPOSING THOSE 'OTHER-ED' ...........................................................DISMANTLING PARADIGMS ...............................................................UPLOADING BRILLIANCE ........................................................DOWNLOADING DINOSAURS //END TRANSMISSION Origins Differences between Modernism and Postmodernism Modernists typically evoke a sense of history, narrative, time, and singularity, while postermodernists are concerned with the effects of deindividualization, superficiality, and the mass consumption of commerical products in society. Authors: In the modern novel, the novelist wants to disappear. The characters, and the characters alone, are meant to tell the story. The great novelists of the modern novel, like Hemingway and Faulkner, chose to allow their characters and their characters' thoughts, to tell the story. The postmodern novelist, however, can be a visitor inside the fictional world he creates. He can bring his own biography, his own experiences into the novel, where they add a different level of reality to the fictional world. Or, the novelist can become a fixture, a character within his novels. Brian McHale, in Chapter 13 of his book, uses John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman, where Fowles makes three distinct appearances in the novel, as a prime example. Another novelist who appears within his fictions is Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who appears in Slaughterhouse Five, looking over the shoulder of his principal character at the devastation of the bombed city of Dresden in World War II. Vladimir Nabokov, chose to appear briefly in many of his novels (often as an old man trying to catch an errant moth), much like Alfred Hitchcock chose to appear briefly, as a member of a crowd or a pedestrian on a sidewalk, in his films. The effect of the author's appearing in the postmodern novel is to create, once again, a "flickering" effect. The illusion of the novel is broken. The frame of the novel is smashed. What is ultimately true, we are reminded, is that the novelist has created the book and the reality we are reading. The novelist is the real reality; or is he? What is real, in the fictional world? What the Experts Say Frederic Jameson: .............to be continued. Also Lyotard! Significant Texts Category:Browse